Two opportunities

The announcement for the European Textile Forum (or Textilforum) has been circulating on various relevant email lists. It will take place in the Openlucht-Museum Eindhoven, 8th to 13th September 2009. The call for papers is open until 25th of May.

Katrin Kania writes, in the email announcement:

We’re having a textile event in Eindhoven in September this year to try and establish better communication between professionals and amateur enthusiasts (like Living History people) working in historical textile crafts, since we believe that both sides can profit greatly from better and closer contact. The time we focus on is from the bronze age to the early 16th century, and we have decided to concentrate on spinning, dyeing and tablet weaving, though all other historical textile techniques are very welcome. We want to provide an opportunity for textiles people to get together and talk about their research, projects, etcetera. There is enough space at the museum of Eindhoven so that people can bring their pieces with them to demonstrate or even sit down and work together. The focus is on actual crafts in connection with research and scholarship; it is an open event where we invite both amateurs and the public to come and see what is done and what is possible in textile work.

At the same time, we will grasp the opportunity with so many craftspeople available and run a spinning experiment, with the aim to find out more about the influences of fiber, spindle and spinner on the resulting thread. Apart from the spinning experiment, the only bit of programme are some short presentations/lectures in the evening; the rest of the day is free to sit, work and talk with each other.

I think that’s an amazing idea, and would love to attend. Bank robbery is probably not a good idea; anyone else have fundraising ideas? I promise I’d write extensively and take lots of pictures.

Dori Ann is helping an elderly neighbor sell off the supplies from his sock-making business. There’s lots of yarn, mostly but not entirely acrylic, also cotton, wool and wool blends. Cones, and cones, and cones. Pictures of the items for sale are on Flickr, and all yarns are $5 a pound (full cones only). You can email her, or probably leave a comment at Flickr on the items you are interested in.

2 Comments on “Two opportunities”

Oh my, this has spread a lot better than I had hoped. Thank you for passing the message on, Phiala – and I’m happy that I found your blog that way; after all, your String Page was one of my most frequented resources when I started to get enlaced in textile things!